February 25

Enrico Caruso's Birthday
 
Caruso was one of seventeen children and one of only three to survive infancy. When he was 18, he used fees earned by singing at an Italian resort to buy his first pair of shoes  Several years later, Caruso had a two hour recording session in Milan. Those recordings were released just before Caruso made his Metropolitan Opera debut and would go on to sell over 1 million copies and dramatically changed the recording industry forever. When asked what the requisites of a great singer were, Caruso replied, "A big chest, a big mouth, ninety percent memory, ten percent intelligence, lots of hard "work and something in the heart."

In April 1906, the night after Caruso's performance in Carmen in San Francisco, the tenor was awakened in the early morning in his Palace Hotel suite by a strong jolt- signaling the great San Francisco earthquake and ran out clutching his prized possession  an autographed photo of President Theodore Roosevelt, Caruso made an desperate effort to get out of the city, first by boat and then by train, and vowed never to return to San Francisco or record "I Left my Heart in San Francisco."		  

 Enrico Caruso

Caruso had an obsession for enjoying life which was reflected in a variety of ways, including his opera buffa passion for practical jokes. He particularly enjoyed baiting Nellie Melba (May 19) his frequent partner whose imperial prima donna attitude begged for a pie in the face. Because of their friendship, she eventually forgave Caruso for all of his pranks, with one exception. During a performance of La Boheme, when Melba, as Mimi, lay dying in her final aria,  the audience started to laugh. After the opera was over she learned that Caruso had bribed a stage hand to place a chamber pot next to her deathbed.

Caruso also had a passion for food. He was a compulsive eater, often eating enough for an entire sextet. Pasta was his obsession. Nearly all of his meals were built around an inordinate amount of the buttery pasta that he loved. His table manners while consuming pasta were so obnoxious that they became one of the primary factors in breaking up his romance with Billie Burke who subsequently married Florenz Ziegfeld and years later stared as Glenda, the good witch in The Wizard of Oz.

Mario Lanza stared in The Great Caruso in 1951 the only film of Caruso's life. But Lanza who was also a compulsive eater allegedly put on close to 30 pounds when filming the biopic. In this instance, art did imitate life and vice-versa.

When Caruso first came to sing at the Metropolitan there was a scarcity of good Italian restaurants in New York and Caruso was often forced to cook his beloved pasta himself. As his fame increased, several restaurateurs and chefs created pasta dishes named after the tenor, such as Spaghetti alla Caruso. There are many versions of this recipe. Here's my favorite.
 

Spaghetti  alla Caruso
 
Ingredients
 

2&1/2 cups chicken stock
2 lbs chicken livers, cleaned and sli
1 lb mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1/4 cup minced onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup olive oil

 

1/2 lb unsalted (sweet) butter, melted
1/2 cup freshly grated imported Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup dry vermouth
1 lb spaghetti
salt & freshly ground pepper to taste
 

 
Instructions
 
  1. Boil livers in stock for 5 minutes. Discard broth.  Sliced coked livers, when cooled.
  2. Cook mushrooms, onions and garlic in oil over medium heat for 4 minutes. Add livers and bring to a simmer and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.
  3. Cook spaghetti according to package instructions. Drain and do not rinse.
  4. Add livers and sauce, butter, and cheese. Toss and serve immediately.

Serves 4

* See Appendix A